Working after retirement

Whether for financial or lifestyle reasons, many people carry on working after normal retirement age.

It might sound a bit strange to think about work in retirement, but many people are still looking for regular or part time employment when they retire from their career job.

There are many goods reasons for doing so. First, we all have to come to terms with the fact that pensions, annuities and other types of retirement income are a lot less generous than they used to be. By all accounts we can’t expect this situation to improve. All the experts are predicting that investment returns are still set to fall in the forseeable future.

So even if you are already drawing a pension, adding to household income by taking on a money earning job makes a lot of sense. Additional money earned from even a part-time job can make a huge difference to comfort and lifestyles, and in many cases your pension will be worth more if you can put back the draw-down date.

There are other benefits of continuing to work in some capacity. The social aspects of work are important, especially as it is all too easy to lose touch with former workmates. Work provides an invaluable structure and motivation if nothing more than to get us out of bed in the morning and of course the opportunity to build new friendships.

A lot of employers have discriminated against older workers in the past and still do so to a lesser extent. And by old they mean anyone older than 40 years! This is now illegal, and employers are no longer permitted to ask questions about your age, date of birth etc during the selection process. Also, employers are struggling to attract staff with specific skills.

Whether they like it or not all recruiters are having to consider older applicants more seriously, whether they are looking for full-time or part-time work. A number of specialist recruitment websites for the over 50’s have become extremely effective in raising awareness of the benefits for employers of hiring mature staff as well as helping people find suitable work. Among the most popular are:

No desire to retire is an active platform for recruiters to advertise jobs for the over 50’s and job-seekers to upload profiles and cv’s. They claim to have over 14,000 members and attract over 5,000 employer searches every month. Best of all the service is free of charge for recruiters and job-seekers and is open for full time or part time work opportunities.

According to the website http://www.retirementreinvented.com/ over half the jobs created in UK last year were filled by people above state pension age. Over 1 million people over retirement age are still in work.

After all, work can be just as rewarding a part of retirement as leisure, hobbies and travel.

Check out here how you can boost your retirement income without depending on others to pay you a salary.

For more information about retirement income and pensions click here .